The great Greek physician and teacher Hippocrates (460 BC-370 BC) described several kinds of cancer, referring to them with the Greek word "carcinos", meaning crab or crayfish. This name comes from the appearance of the cut surface of a solid malignant tumor, with the "veins stretched out on all sides as the animal the crab has its feet, whence it derives its name."

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Tag Archives: Adjusting to change

Back in late September, my friends asked me if I was worried about the upcoming move to New Mexico. I replied, no, it would be a piece of cake compared to my earlier cross country move from Boston to California. After all, in 1993, I said goodbye to our babysitter of nine years and packed up three kids, a dog and a cat to move to a city where I did not know a single soul. I will never forget walking into the principal’s office at our new elementary school, filling out the registration forms, and realizing that for the first time ever in my life, I had not a single name to fill in the blank space which said “Who to contact in case of an emergency.” I was starting from scratch.

As it happens, I had seriously underestimated the effort required to detach from a home I lived in for seventeen years, from my accumulated belongings and from my youngest son and my elderly father, neither of whom desired to join me on my journey. As sentimental as I am, it was impossible to merely throw things away—old photographs had to be examined and scanned, stuffed animals and dolls needed to be hugged one last time, old movie ticket stubs and playbills needed to reawaken memories before being tossed. Each time I carried a large green trash bag out of the house, the closets, nooks and crannies seemed to refill themselves. In the end, I ran out of time, and the movers packed what was left, which amounted to an entire moving van filled with our furniture, and over 300 boxes. My culling was not very successful.

My biggest concern about the move itself was how my four dogs, especially elderly Magic in congestive heart failure, would handle the displacement, the two day 1,000 mile road trip and climb to 7000 feet in altitude, and the uncertainties of new territory. As it turned out, the one that I worried about most surprised me with what appeared to be a new lease on life—clearly the cooler crisper mountain air seemed to rejuvenate him. It was the little guy, Yoda, my tiny rescued Chihuahua-terrier mix that had some unexpected issues.

Yoda was picked up as a stray in Oakland, CA two years ago at Christmas time. Starving and loaded with tapeworm, he jumped into the arms of a good Samaritan who stopped traffic on Fremont Avenue to pick him up. My veterinarian friend there made a search for an owner, but when none came forth she neutered him, wormed him and sent him down to me. He quickly adjusted to life with the three jolly grey giants. Playful and loving, he never met a soul he didn’t like and never caused us a moment of trouble–until the move.

For the first time ever, on arriving in New Mexico, Yoda suffered from severe separation anxiety. When either my husband or I would leave the house, he would cry piteously and endlessly, despite the fact that the other of us was still there, along with his Scottish deerhound buddies. He was inconsolable. Amidst the doggy distress, fear and consternation, one thing became clear to me—at some point in his short life, he had been left behind. And he did not want it to happen again.

Yoda has settled down now and he knows that if we leave the house we are coming back. But his little trauma has left me with a New Year’s wish for us all: Be brave! Make a change. Take a short trip, or a long journey, with your best friends and your family. Yoda wants what we all want in our own way–to live, love and laugh—and never, ever to be left behind. Happy New Year everyone!

I am just getting adjusted to the latest adjustments. When I was in medical school, I heard that word “adjustment” used as medical terminology for the first time, as in “He’s just having an adolescent adjustment reaction.” Before that, I had experienced the word more frequently applied to inanimate objects—cars in particular, such as “the driver’s seat needs adjusting,” or “please adjust the timing belt.” As my education progressed, I learned about chiropractors and how they “adjust” the spinal column to relieve back and neck pain, or even foot and ankle misalignment in my friends who were dancers. But somehow I must have missed the lectures on adjusting to the natural process of aging, since I never gave it much thought until recently when I began to make the rounds of retirement communities here in San Diego.

After my mother passed away in early January, my eighty seven year old father received the news that his heart and lungs were no longer able to tolerate the 8,500 foot elevation of their Snowmass, Colorado home. Previous bypass surgery and a stenotic aortic valve had taken their toll, and the prospect of wearing oxygen 24 hours a day, seven days a week was not appealing to this man who had been performing cleft lip and cleft palate surgery in Africa and Viet Nam as recently as last fall. And so a month ago, down from the mountains he came. The improvement in his breathing was immediate—so much so, in fact, that he has agreed to come to live here in San Diego. Although he has been staying with us, and is welcome to do so indefinitely, he longs to reestablish a social life amongst his peers—to play bridge, to discuss great books and current events, and hopefully, to resume his golf and tennis games. He had been half-heartedly looking at facilities for the past two years of my mother’s dementia—full service facilities that take the elderly from independent living through skilled nursing, and ultimately, if needed, to dementia care. This time around, he is free from the constraints of her limited options, and we’ve broadened the search a bit.

For the last few weekends, we have dutifully and diligently set off to see the best that Southern California has to offer. We’ve toured low rises and high rises, condominiums and apartments, mansions and villas. We’ve seen covered heated swimming pools, exercise rooms and movie theaters, casual coffee shops and formal sports coat requiring dining rooms. We even saw an apartment at Casa Manana, a retirement community in La Jolla, where the floor to ceiling picture window in the all-purpose one room living/bedroom gave up a spectacular ocean view and the sound of waves so close we could almost feel them crashing against the shoreline. But each time, my father turned away. Neither of us spoke of the sights that gave a small nagging voice to our fears—the squeak of a walker being lifted and set down again, a palsied hand reaching for a glass of water, the faint smell of mildew in a recently vacated apartment with a silent cane propped in a corner, long ago abandoned for a wheelchair. My father was pleasant and polite to our tour guides. I, who will turn sixty years old this year, looked out over the gray heads and stooped shoulders in the dining rooms, and saw my future.

A week ago, after spending most of Saturday and all of Sunday morning looking at potential places for Dad to live, I had had enough. There was one more visit to be made, to a retirement community very near my workplace. My husband graciously volunteered while I stayed home to do laundry. Much to my surprise, when they returned from the excursion, my father was very excited. The community was new, beautiful, and laid out like a country club, with low slung buildings connected by gardens, grassy areas and well-tended walkways. There were two dog parks, and folks were out and about on a sunny day. When I asked my father what he liked so much about the place he exclaimed, “Everybody looked so YOUNG!”

I suspect that my father will adjust to his new life just fine, once his medical conditions are straightened out and the path to that future is clear. As for me, I am adjusting to the fact that my pantry and freezer are now stocked full of his favorite foods—oatmeal raisin cookies, bagels with strawberry cream cheese, salty potato chips and Klondike bars. It looks like my wardrobe is going to need an adjustment soon!

About

In 2012, I realized that my thirty plus years of practice as a radiation oncologist had provided me with an abundance of stories–happy, sad, compelling and inspiring–and that these stories needed to be told. Along the way, stories from my “other life” as a mother of three, a daughter, an animal lover, and an occasional world traveler crept in. I hope you enjoy my stories as much as I enjoy telling them.